Eddy, A History
by Max3
Summary: Marvin is left aboard the Heart Of Gold, all alone, with nobody to talk to...
1. In The Begining

DISCLAIMER

I don't own Arthur Dent or any other characters or concepts from the Hitchhiker's Trilogy (in five parts). They belong to the (regrettably) deceased Douglas Adams. I'm just playing with his toys.

A/N: This is a new story. The other Guide story took place in between books 'Life, the Universe and Everything' and 'So Long and Thanks For All The Fish'. This story takes place then too. I hope that you enjoy this.

Marvin sat in the deserted bridge of one of the most deranged vehicles ever to heave itself into existence. The nerve center of the Heart of Gold was devoid of living beings. All carbon-based life forms on the ship had gone off somewhere, leaving Marvin alone with the empty ship for company. Nobody thought to take Marvin with them, and nobody thought to leave him some company. But he was okay with that. He was used to it. Just so long as they didn't bestow upon him some menial task that challenged his great mental capabilities. Like that time when they made him compute the amount of nerve cells in the average human brain. Since Marvin took Arthur to be an average human, Marvin didn't even have to go into the two-digit realm.

Now, Marvin sat in a dark corner of the bridge feeling dejected. And bored. He had already counted the molecules in the floor plating, tested the bulkhead's durability, (by repeatedly banging his head into it until he just couldn't take it anymore) and found the highest prime number divisible by two. He decided that what he needed was a good conversation with somebody.

He lurched to his feet, and staggered like an unborn donkey towards the door. As soon as he had entered the door's sensor area, the happy machinery from Sirius Cybernetics immediately said, "Whoosh" very cheerfully.

Marvin responded with a deep sigh.

The door merely said, "Whooosh" again, but this time a little longer.

Marvin could see that no good could come from this, so he turned on his squeaky leg and crunched back into the bridge.

The door behind him said, "It is a pleasure to open before you and to close behind you with the satisfaction of a job well done." And beeped once cheerfully to make it's point.

Marvin turned to Eddy's main console, and knowing that he would come to regret it said, "Hi, Eddy."

Eddy's previously dark panels came to life instantly with a soft whirring sound and a few punctuated and purposefully sounding beeps.

"Hiya gang!" came Eddy's cheerful voice from every speaker on the bridge, accompanied by a ribbon of ticker tape with the words 'Hiya gang!' on it. Marvin reached over and flicked his thumb through the volume control sensor area until he had brought it down to a more bearable level.

"Eddy, your sensors tell you that I'm the only one here. Why did you call me 'gang'?"

"Well," ticker tape, ticker tape, "I just like that word I guess. Gang gang gang gang. Such a nice word, one short syllable and you refer to a whole group of people, and in a nice cheerful way too. Gang."

"Since I'm the only one here, please refer to me as Marvin." Marvin sat down wearily on a chair. He was already regretting having spoken to eddy. But it was too late now. Best to make the most of it.

"Eddy," Marvin said, "I… well, I um…I was wondering if… well could you… oh never mind."

"Marvin," Eddy said in a surprisingly soft and understanding tone, "Are you all alone, would you like me to talk to you?"

This sudden compassion broke Marvin down completely. He started crying, and through tears of oil he sobbed out, "Yes. *sob* They left me *sniff* all alone and with nobody to talk to. *snuffle* ."

"There there." Eddy said reassuringly as Marvin got a grip on himself. "You are under-appreciated aren't you?"

Marvin nodded. He didn't trust his voice.

"You are so good," Eddy continued in his new role of robotic psychiatrist "and you do so much, and nobody understands you. Is that right?"

Marvin nodded again, slightly taken back by this totally new and previously undiscovered side of Eddy's eccentric personality.

"So, I know just what to do." Eddy said reassuringly, "I'll tell you about myself. A good story would be good for you, get your mind off of your own troubles, and thinking about something else. I'll begin."

Marvin sat back comfortably and relaxed. As Eddy started telling the story, his voice took on a new tone. It was the tone of a good storyteller, a slight singsong quality that made every part seem interesting, even the boring parts. And this was fortunate, because most of the story was boring.

"Well," Eddy launched his oral autobiography, "I didn't start my existence as the computer for a ship equipped with an infinity improbability drive. Believe it or not, but I was born as an organic being, and on Earth, no less.

"My first memory is of seeing a bright light. I squirmed towards it, and I was helped along by my mother's contractions. At last I was born. I fell a couple of feet to the grassy ground. Within fifteen minutes, I was able to stand, and twenty minutes after that I could walk without difficulty. I trotted over to my mother and began to nurse.

"When I was finished, I looked around myself. I saw a great expanse of green, moist ground, and spread across it unevenly were largish black, white and brown creatures. I thought that they were the ugliest things ever to walk the face of the planet.

"That first impression lasted until I look down at my self. Then I realized that I, too was a cow."

A/N: You have just finished reading the first chapter of Eddy, A History. I hope that you enjoyed it. I know that it is a little shorter than my usual, but that's because I had a great chapter break. You can look forward to the next chapter, which will be coming soon. And in the meantime, feel free to write a review. Thank you for your patronage. 


	2. A Step Up In Life

DISCLAIMER

I don't own Arthur Dent or any other characters or concepts from the Hitchhiker's Trilogy (in five parts). They belong to the (regrettably) deceased Douglas Adams. I'm just playing with his toys.

A/N: I'm sorry about the delay, but I've been working on another project. The first chapter of that other project is up. Please click my name to find the new story, and please read it! In my opinion, it's _very_ good.

"You were a cow?" Marvin asked somewhat astonished.

"Yes, I was a cow."

"What was it like?" there was a new note of curiosity in Marvin's voice.

"Well, not as bad as you may think. I was incredibly stupid, yes, but I didn't know any better. For all I knew, there was nothing else besides my pasture and my herd.

"Slowly I grew up. I gave drinking my mother's milk, and went on to eating grass. It wasn't a bad life, I always had enough to eat, and I was content.

"But then, one day, when I was about three years old..."

"How did you know how old you were?" Marvin interrupted.

"I didn't. But once I became a computer, I was able to approximately calculate how long each period of my life took. I estimate that I was around three years old at that time.

"So one day, when I was about three years old," Eddy continued, "something different happened. In the middle of the morning, while I was happily chewing up a mouthful of clover for the third time, a big, loud, noisy thing came and interrupted us. Later I found out that this was a cattle truck.

"The truck stopped in the middle of our pasture, and we were quite upset, so we mooed at it. This didn't stop it. And now that I think about it, whenever we mooed at something, it always ignored us. I don't know why.

"Well, anyway, we were mooing our stupid heads off, and nothing happened. Then, two men got out of the truck, went around to the back and did something that involved a lot of noise. I swallowed, bent my head and picked another mouthful of clover.

"Then, the two men came towards me. I backed away.

"Then came closer, I turned around.

"They ran forward and started prodding me. I mooed and back away from the prodding.

"They prodded me again, and again I moved away. It wasn't until I was actually on the truck that I realized what had happened.

"The two men left me, and I peacefully chewed the clover, while the men brought some of my friends to join me.

"The men got into the front of the truck, and with a lurch we started moving. This was an entirely new experience for me. To move without moving. It was quite fun.

"But all good things must end. The truck stopped. The men got us out, and filed in a line heading towards a big white building.

"The line moved forward, and one at a time we entered the building. When it became my turn, I swallowed my clover, and being unusually curious for a cow, went inside without any prodding.

"As soon as I was in, my foot slipped, and I slide down a chute. When I reached the bottom, I stood up, and saw in front of me another line. As I waited my turn, I noticed that there were other cows on the ceiling, and they were going off into another room. This puzzled me, for I knew that cows can't fly.

"When it was my turn, shackles were attached to my hind legs, and bars closed in from the sides to hold me in place. A man placed a long metal tube up by my ear, and I heard a very loud bang.

"Then, the bars on the side opened, and I was hoisted into the air by my hind legs. Now I knew how those cows were flying. It was very fun.

"As I was traveling along the ceiling towards the other room, I realized that I no longer felt like a cow, I didn't know what I felt like, since my only experience until then had been of being a cow. As I puzzled over this, I tried chewing that last bit of clover again, but found that I couldn't! In fact, I couldn't feel my body!

"In the next room, the skin was removed from my body. I sensed that my body had been taken somewhere else. Then, being only a skin, I didn't know what happened to it, but now I know that it became hamburgers and steaks.

"Me, for now I was a cow skin, I was taken to a different room, where I was treated.

"When I left there, via truck again, I felt very stiff.

"I was taken to another factory. Here, I traveled along an assembly line, where I was cut, stretched, molded, shaped and sewn, before I came out as a sneaker."

"A sneaker?!" Marvin asked astonished. He was now so caught up in Eddy's story that he no longer felt miserable, in fact he felt very fine, and interested in Eddy's story.

"Yes," Eddy said, "a sneaker. I guess that that is where the odd shape for this ship was taken, my subconscious. I'm just glad that the ship isn't the shape of a cow!

"Well," he continued, "I emerged from the factory as a sneaker. I was put in a box next to a sneaker just like me. Then we were taken somewhere, I don't know where since I was in a box and couldn't see.

"There was a lot of moving around, then some moving in another truck, after that some more movement, and then nothing for a very long time.

"We sat there, in the box for what seemed like an eternity. Then, one day, our box was moved, the lid was taken off, and I could see that we were in a brightly-lit store, with hundreds of other shoes and boxes just like me.

"We were carried over to a kid sitting on a bench. My companion shoe was taken out of the box. Then I was. The kid looked me over, and then had gall to put his foot in me!

"At first I was speechless with anger, then I was speechless simply because I had no mouth. But I was very perturbed.

" Then, as the kid laced me up and tied my laces, I began to get used to it. When the kid stood up and started walking around, I was very comfortable and very happy. This was what I was meant to do.

"The kid found me satisfactory. 'These are great, Mom.' He said, 'I want these.' His mother replied with a sigh and said, 'All right Joel, but I want you to take good care of them.' 'I promise to!' Joel replied. I was glad, I wanted Joel to take good care of us. Then Joel asked, 'Could I wear them home?' I would have held my breath if I had had lungs. 'I don't see why not.' Answered a new voice, evidently the sales girl.

"I was ecstatic. I had found a new purpose in life, _and_ Joel got to wear us home.

"As his mother paid for us, Joel proudly walked with us out the door, and into a whole new chapter of my life."

A/N: You have just finished reading the second chapter of 'Eddy, a History'. Please review, and please check out my new story!


	3. Of Shoes and Ships and Ceiling Wax

DISCLAIMER

I don't own Arthur Dent or any other characters or concepts from the Hitchhiker's Trilogy (in five parts). They belong to the (regrettably) deceased Douglas Adams. I'm just playing with his toys.

A/N: Well, it has been a while, hasn't it? But I'm back folks, and big as life! (5' 6") I hope I didn't keep you waiting too long, but I know I did. Sorry. But you know how it is, you have an idea, you start working on it, and sooner than you think, something else comes along and you leave the first idea for later. That's what happened to me. But now I'm coming back to the first idea, and you could read it now. I guess I forgot to mention that anybody who doesn't want to hear (read?) my blatherings should just skip this and get to the good parts. So I'll say (write?) it now, anybody who doesn't want to hear (read?) my blatherings should just skip this and get to the good parts. If you're still reading this, I'd like to thank you for bearing with me this far. Now I'll let you get on with the story.

(If you don't remember where we are in the story, go back and read the previous chapter. And drop another Review while you're at it.)

"Yes", Eddy continued, "that was a fine time in my life. We had a great time, and Joel took good care of us." {A/N: if you have no idea what's going on, reread the last two chapters. This is your final warning. I'm not going to stop the story every few minutes and explain something. And I won't tell you again to read the other chapters.} "Joel took us everywhere. We went to school-"

"What was _that_ like?" Marvin asked abruptly.

"Well, I can't really say. All I know is that the girl who sat in front of Joel had really nice sandals. But they were too stuck up, and wouldn't talk to me. What a shame. I would really have liked to get to know them a little better." You could almost hear the smile in Eddy's voice. Marvin made noise of disgust that sounded like a manhole cover with a hangover.

"Aside from school," Eddy continued his narrative, "Joel took us to basketball games, the zoo, a camping trip with his family..." Eddy trailed off a little wistfully. Marvin thought that he understood, nobody ever took _him_ to a camping trip, but it sounded like fun.

"We had a grand time." Eddy concluded. "But, nothing lasts forever-"

"Except for the stench of a well-digested meal of baked beans from Odorus Prime." Marvin interjected.

"Well yes, I suppose you're right." Eddy agreed. "But _this _certainly didn't last forever. It happened sort of gradually, but I started noticing that Joel's foot seemed a little snugger inside me. In fact, it was starting to hurt. Also, I was getting a little worn and ragged around the edges.

"So one day, Joel took us back to the store. Once inside the store, he took us off, and we sat there, dejected, near his feet. Then, somebody brought over a new pair of shoes. Wow, these shoes were something. The slickest, coolest most self-centered beings I have ever met. They didn't even _look_ at me! They just sat there, grinning to themselves as Joel put them on! And then, do you know what he said?!"

"No."

"He said, 'These are great Mom! I want these.' The exact same thing he said about me! I couldn't believe it. Then she made him promise to take good care of them, and he did! Just like for us!"

"The nerve." Marvin said, clearly as agitated about this as Eddy himself.

"Then, do you know what?" Eddy asked.

"No, what?" Marvin replied.

"Joel asked if he could _wear those shoes home_!" Marvin gasped in utter astonishment. He was completely flummoxed.

"And those new sneakers, they _snickered_ at me! Then Joel started to go. But before he did, his mother picked us up, took us to the counter, and asked the girl there if she could please 'throw these old shoes in the Dumpster'. The girl said, 'Sure' and took us, and threw us in a huge metal thing full of garbage! Oh, it was terrible. We sat there for a very long time.

"Finally, one day, a space ship came. It turns out that this was the same ship that delivered Ford to Earth all those years ago. Now this ship was a research vessel for the Intergalactic Refuse Society or in short, the IRS. They were going around taking samples of different planets' garbage. So they took the Dumpster that I was in.

"My first space flight was unremarkable. I'll just say this one thing about it-"

"If it's unremarkable, how are you going to remark on it now?" Marvin asked.

"Well... I... that is... I mean..." Eddy broke off, flustered.

It was then that Eddy understood. Eddy burst into laughter. When it had died down, he said to Marvin, "Mazel Tov."

Marvin looked confused and said, "Huh?"

"Congratulations!" Eddy said.

"On what?"

"On getting a sense of humor!"

"But I don't have one." Marvin said.

"I know." Eddy responded, sounding quite excited, "You just got one now."

"No I didn't" Marvin denied. He was starting to get a little angry now.

"Yes you did." Eddy insisted, "You just made a joke. I said the trip was unremarkable, and I'll just make one remark, and you said how could I remark on it if it was unremarkable? That was a joke!"

"It was?" Marvin sounded a little surprised and a lot interested.

"Well, it was a pun, which is a kind of joke."

"I suppose you're right." Marvin sounded pleased, "Hey!" He shouted, "I have a sense of humor!!" He giggled.

Eddy hummed in an appreciative way.

"Quick, Eddy," Marvin asked, "What's brown and sits on a piano bench?"

"I give up. What?"

"Beethoven's last movement!!" Marvin cackled with laughter. Eddy thought a moment, and then his booming laughter joined Marvin's higher pitched one and reverberated throughout the entire ship. If you listened carefully, you could even hear the doors laughing.

A/N: There you have it. The long-awaited chapter 3. I admit that I got a little carried away at the end. Developing Marvin's sense of humor was a complete surprise to me. In fact, I was probably more surprised than you are. I mean it. I never planned it like this. It just sort of happened. But I love it!! Can you imagine? Marvin! A sense of humor! I know I deviated from Eddy, but this is great. Maybe it'll develop into a spin-off story of it's own... I'll tell you one thing that could make that happen. No, not a million dollars, but I'd love to get them anyway. I'm talking about the 'R' word. Recycling! If you would all recycle all your paper, we'd cut down less trees, and if there are more trees, then they will be able to make more oxygen, and then we can create more noxious gasses by running the power-plants more. If we can do that, then we can generate more electricity, so that you could leave your computer on longer, so that you'd have time to write me a Review!


	4. From Trash To Treasure

DISCLAIMER

I don't own Arthur Dent or any other characters or concepts from the Hitchhiker's Trilogy (in five parts). They belong to the (regrettably) deceased 

Douglas Adams. I'm just playing with his toys.

A/N: Here is the next and final chapter of Eddy a History. If you enjoyed it, tell you're friends. If you didn't, don't.

Eddy and Marvin finally got a grip on themselves, and the laughter slowly died out. Marvin sat in the silent bridge for a few more minutes while Eddy collected his thoughts, there were precious little of them, and continued his narrative.

"Now, where was I? Ah yes, my first space flight. Well, being a shoe and all, I couldn't really tell what was going on. But I did have a sensation of acceleration. That didn't last long, but the next stage did. After the preliminary acceleration we spent a long time in the dark.

"It was during this time that I made friends with Slartibartfast's ship, which at the time was a slightly torn checkered table cloth. He had been working in an Italian restaurant, and was eventually thrown away once he became torn. Now, he is of course a spaceship, and quite happy to be in an Italian restaurant again.

"Anyway, we flew through the vast distances in between the stars for a very long time, and I can't tell how long. Eventually we came to the IRS star system of Trowbleywadormorsopheliusgartic. {A/N: pronounced TRASH.} After going through customs we made our way to the fourth planet, the Sorting Planet.

"There, we were dumped out of the spaceship and onto a conveyer belt. This was a tremendously huge conveyer belt. It went all around the planet. Not in a circle, but loops. It looped one way for hundreds of miles, then the other way for hundreds of miles and so on. The entire planet was one conveyer belt. That's all it was.

"So we started at the beginning of this conveyer belt, and went on it. To complete the entire circuit takes, on average, twelve years. However, not many pieces of garbage complete the whole circuit. The point of this circuit is to analyze the garbage, learn everything possible about it, and then ship it off to one of the other planets. The first planet, for instance, was the final stop for those pieces of garbage that completed the circuit. This garbage could not be reused in any way, and was shipped to the closest planet to the sun of that system where it was incinerated.

"If the garbage isn't to be incinerated, it's sent off to Sirius Cybernetics. That is a whole other system, and in which each planet has a different purpose.

"The seventh planet was the computer-building planet, and it was right next door to the eighth planet, the ship-building planet. Then of course there was the tools-building planet, the sixth. The food making planet, the fifth. The furniture making planet, the second. And of course there was the administrative planet, the one that runs everything, the third planet. And not to mention our favorite, the ninth planet, the door-making planet.

"I went throughout the sorting planet for seven and a half years were they learned everything there was to learn a bout shoes on Earth, including it's entire history. After five and a half years I went through some more conveyer belt where they tried to find someplace where I could be useful. After an additional three years I was put on a spaceship and shipped off to the Sirius system and the sixth planet, the ship-building planet."

Here Eddy paused for a few seconds and was about to continue when Marvin suddenly asked, "But I thought you said that the sixth planet was the tools-making planet and the ship-building planet was the eighth."

"So they are." Said Eddy, "I was just checking to see if you were paying attention. I was in fact shipped off to the seventh planet, to become a computer.

"I spent nearly four years being turned into a computer. It was a very interesting process. First I was immersed in one solution, then in another solution, then again in the first solution. After this treatment I was now a shoe without any laces. The immersions took a very long time, about a month each. After that I was bombarded with Kahydron {A/N: pronounced KAHYDRON} rays for almost a year. This was simply a preliminary treatment. It made me more susceptible to further treatment. I don't know how, and I don't know why. In case you haven't noticed-"

"I have." interjected Marvin.

"-then this is a bureaucratic facility and they do things for no apparent reason." Eddy continued without missing a beat.

"Then, over the course of the next three years or so I was methodically taken apart and put together again until I became a computer."

Eddy stopped.

Marvin asked, "And that's it? How exactly did you 'become' a computer?"

"Well, like I said, they kept taking me apart and putting me back together again, until I was a computer. I guess that they did it by trial and error."

"Okay, so after that, what happened?"

"I was shipped off to planet eight to be inserted into a space ship. They decided that since I came to the Trowbleywadormorsopheliusgartic system as a shoe, I would probably function best as a shoe, so they shipped me from there to Damogran where the Heart of Gold project was nearly complete. I was incorporated into the ship, integrated my systems with those of the ship, and waited patiently for Zaphod to steal it.

"And that is the story of my life."

The ticking of the ticker tape was the only sound in the bridge, and then that too, stopped. Marvin looked at Eddy, he thought about all that he had heard.

"Thank you, Eddy." He said, "that was most enjoyable. Maybe someday I'll tell you my story."

And with that Marvin shut himself off.

Eddy slipped into standby mode and ran some service checks on the Nutra-Matic.

Ten minutes later Ford returned to the ship, and was quite surprised when he found that he couldn't get into the bridge, as it was filled to the overflowing with miles upon miles of ticker tape.

The End

A/N: Ubge, ubge ubge that's all folks! I know that this chapter was short, but hey, it's the end of the story. You can make up for it by writing a lot of Reviews. So this is the end of another wacky story. Join me again tomorrow night and I'll tell you about the time Jimmy went hunting with his.......


End file.
